Decision looms for Democrats on 2016 convention site

WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Warren celebrated her takedown of President Obama’s nominee for a top Treasury spot last week by signaling a readiness for her next battle: blocking those who meddle with the post-2008 financial reform known as the Dodd-Frank Act.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inside the Democratic Party, economic policy is often seen as a contest between President Barack Obama’s track record and the anti-Wall Street approach advocated by Massachusetts Sen.Eighty-five percent of Democrats want to see former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the party’s frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination, enter the race, compared to just 11 percent who say they don’t want to see her run, according to a new poll from CBS News.Walton gave $25,000, the maximum allowed under federal law, to the super PAC Ready for Hillary during the 2013-2014 cycle, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. The Republican-controlled House last week passed a bill that would ease Dodd-Frank rules and sent it to the Senate, one of several changes approved in recent days.

But the upcoming US election in 2016 may offer a choice of two powerful women candidates: former First Lady Hillary Clinton and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts senator and her allies in the Democratic Party’s liberal wing, who have turned into a viable threat to Wall Street, insist they will do their utmost to derail all rollback efforts. A group of Clinton advisers offered a detailed economic agenda last week that aims to help raise wages for millions of workers and narrow the gap between rich and poor. Biden Jr. was actually the only other potential Democratic contender to be rated one way or the other by a majority of Democrats; 40 percent want him to run and 38 percent say they do not. Divisions are expected to pop up, not only between Warren and Republicans in the new Senate majority, but between Warren and centrist Democrats, who view Wall Street firms more favorably. “Elizabeth Warren is going to draw the line in the sand and moderate Democrats are going to have to decide which side they want to be on,” said Isaac Boltansky, an analyst at Washington financial services firm Compass Point Research & Trading, and a former Warren aide on the Congressional Oversight Panel.

The policy road map was produced at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank stocked with veterans of the Bill Clinton and Obama administrations. Clinton is expected to endorse more infrastructure projects that create jobs and she has also spoken of the importance of creating an online public university where anyone can win a degree. By leading the successful effort to vanquish investment banker Antonio Weiss in his bid for Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, she drew cheers from her populist base and all but ensured the White House will steer away from future Treasury picks with strong Wall Street ties. It is particularly detested by organized labor — a key Democratic constituency — because the company has doggedly fought all efforts to organize its workers.

Elizabeth Warren, insists she’s not running, leaving the Democratic field so wide open that 73-year-old Bernie Sanders, an independent and junior senator from Vermont, is now fourth behind Clinton, Warren and Vice President Biden, according an averaging of polls by RealClearPolitics.com “I think you miss the chance to vet ideals,” says Richard Fowler, a Democrat and host of the progressive-leaning “Richard Fowler Talk Show.” “I think that’s what elections are about. Better for Congress to focus on jobs and wages for middle-class families.” That goal has eluded Obama, even though he is able to point to a rebounding economy, falling unemployment rates and lower gas prices. A Harvard Law professor, she came to the attention of the American voters when President Obama tapped her to set up the US Financial Protection Bureau. Webb is the only candidate on the Democratic side to have taken formal steps toward a run in 2016, recently forming an exploratory committee as he weighs a bid.

Obama, in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, plans to propose raising the capital gains rate on the wealthy and eliminating a tax break on inheritances. In her recently published memoir, she describes the tough period her family went through after her father suffered a heart attack and couldn’t work. Among the tough questions she will likely face, and needs to answer well, include what she knew about security at the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed in a 2012 terror attack. The plan is a nonstarter with Republicans, but Obama will make the case for using the additional revenue for new tax credits and other benefits for the middle class.

Warren’s rise has drawn heavy fire from Washington’s business lobby. “The idea that enterprise and American companies should be more vigorously regulated by the government, and in fact controlled by the government, is a view that we don’t share,” Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue said last week, when asked about Warren. Warren, in a speech this month to the AFL-CIO, said that despite stronger economic growth and a soaring stock market, “America’s middle class is in deep trouble.” Liberals say the problem of stagnant wages require urgent action. “We need to be extremely aggressive to deal with income and wealth inequality,” said Vermont Sen. Donohue told reporters Warren was “a very pleasant woman if you sit down and have a cup of tea with her… but if she runs for president, I don’t think the American people will share her views.” Republicans, now in control of both houses of Congress, plan an ongoing siege of Dodd-Frank. Clinton’s template has been the 1990s, during her husband’s two terms, and Summers noted that many of the ideas in the report built upon the “Putting People First” agenda from Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. It also cited some of the chief parts of Obama’s economic program, such as efforts to raise the federal minimum wage, spend more on roads, bridges and public works, offer paid leave for workers and help students pay for college.

The judge, she notes, probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds, and “he started shifting himself closer to the microphone and edging me out of his way. Along with Summers, the commission included the center’s president and CEO, Neera Tanden, a former Hillary Clinton policy adviser; former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a leader of a political action committee set to back a Clinton candidacy; and Steven Rattner, who was chief adviser to Obama’s auto bailout task force and is a longtime Clinton donor. Most notably, it does not advocate for the breakup of Wall Street banks, which Warren has sought, and does not push for a higher minimum wage beyond the $10.10 pushed by Obama. “In some areas, the report represents a largely Washington establishment perspective, and isn’t as bold as folks outside the Beltway are probably ready for,” Galland said.

Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, said much of the report offered ideas that could unite broad parts of the Democratic coalition.